Congestion pricing is “unlikely” to launch on-time this January, in part thanks to the coronavirus outbreak, MTA Chairman Pat Foye said Wednesday.
Speaking to reporters after the agency’s virtual boarding meeting, Foye said the nation’s largest transit agency had yet to receive a clear answer from the federal Department of Transportation on what type of environmental review is required to toll downtown Manhattan car trips.
“Given a combination of the pandemic and the delays in Washington, a January 2021 start is unlikely, but we are doing everything we can on our side, on the MTA side, to advance it as much as possible,” Foye told reporters.
He insisted the MTA’s own work on the project is on-schedule.
“Despite the fact that we furnished U.S. DOT with the information they required in January, we still do not have a decision on which environmental process they prefer, a long one or a short one,” he said. “Frankly, we’re indifferent. We just want to be told.”
Gov. Andrew Cuomo suggested in February that President Trump would hold the program — which is expected to raise $15 billion for transit improvements — “hostage.”
“Will they hold congestion pricing hostage? Yes,” Cuomo told reporters at the time. “That’s how they do business.”
“The federal government has been slow, obstinate and I think purposefully difficult whenever they can,” he said.